July 14, 2014

Hola Familia <3

So this was another one of those weeks haha. I'm working hard, I'm trying to get better every day... I think the Lord is just trying my patience and my faith. 

This week was a little crazy/scary for our district. My zone leader ended up getting gall bladder surgery out of nowhere. He's healing up now, but keep him in your prayers! 

So this week, we haven't really had any success finding new people that are at the point of progression. BUT I've still seen how the Lord is using us as missionaries to bring the light of the Gospel to those that really need it.

First of all...C. I know I talk about her ALL the time, but seriously she's amazing. I feel so humbled and blessed that the Lord allowed me to be the means of bringing the gospel to her because she's changing lives. She decided that she wants to do Personal Progress even though she's an adult haha. She's going to help a beehive get her medallion and they're going to do it together. She's also helping reactivate some YSA that are inactive in our area, and is constantly visiting and serving people in the ward. She has three weeks as a member and she's already changing the face of the work in Barrio San Diego. She's a complete rock with a solid testimony and nobody ever believes that she's a recent convert. She absorbs and applies information so quickly, it's like she's been a member all of her life. She's a blessing in my life... She reminds me a lot of how mom describes Kelsie... a ray of sunshine for everyone she meets. 

I've also learned about the importance and inspiration of nightly planning. We've decided to search for old investigators that the other missionaries had in the last three or four years. We felt inspired to search in Manzana Q one day at 7:00. We didn't really know why. Well we went and randomly ran into Hermana G. a new convert of the elders that recently moved into our area. She's a single mom of two kids and the sweetest woman that you could ever meet. She asked us if we could come in and visit her...we had showed up as she was entering the house...well the room that she's renting. She had us sit down for a moment and left the room to heat up water for some hot chocolate. She brought back dinner for her kids and a little plate of rice and yuca for each of us. Then she sat down and her eyes watered up as she told us she prayed that we would come visit her and that the same day she had lost her job. It was obvious that she was in serious need. I felt sick to my stomach as I had a plate of rice when it should have been her kid's breakfast the next morning. The thing is, when they give you food out of nowhere, you have to accept it. We shared some scriptures with her and helped her to calm down. She kept saying everything would be alright...but there were little things that she said that made us realize she really was near the bottom of the barrel. I felt the spirit testify to me that we needed to be there at that exact moment, because nobody else knew about her situation. We  called the bishop the next morning, and went to buy some breakfast for her family. Things are getting taken care of now and I just feel so blessed to know how much the gospel really blesses people and how as members of the church we are called to bear each other's burdens and help each other move forward.

Last night we were able to teach a single father who's wife had abandoned him and his son. We taught him in the chapel. The first thing he said when he came in was "Wow, it's so peaceful here" He immediately felt the spirit and had lots of good questions. He accepted to be baptized, so we're praying that he will progress.  

It wasn't that successful of a week, but I'm looking forward to a better one. I know the Lord is with me and is teaching me more everyday. I'm learning a ton and I'm becoming more converted to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I love you guys and hope you have a wonderful week!

BONUS: We had a Sacrament meeting adventure with a little puppy that came into the meeting. I was playing the piano and when she got sick of wandering around she came and fell asleep on my feet haha. Well she felt like she had to follow us to all our classes. I kicked her out of the chapel...but somehow she snuck back in and got locked on the grounds until we came back for our lesson with a new investigator. We named her Manty (mantequilla)...and she followed us all around up until we came to internet this morning hahaa.  

<3 Hermana Carr 

Some members of our ward

Taking "Manty" Out of church

July 7,2014


Querida Familia (incluye Elder Carr),

Well, this week was a little bit of a rough one. I don't have a ton to report haha.

  It's FREEZING here. I'm so bummed because someone stole the outer layer of my winter coat when I was leaving Caraz, but I still have the inner layer and I found a super cheap fleece coat that keeps me pretty warm with the under armour the Youngs gave me (THANK THEM A TON FOR ME). And yeah, people are still going crazy over Mundial (the world cup) haha. Sounds like you guys had a fun week! Glad you got to go on your horse trip. Sounds like the trek will be a blast...even if it's going to be hot haha. Take lots of pictures for me!

 On Monday we went to Ancon, a beach in another zone in our mission. We got special permission to go and it was a blast. We got to play in an old abandoned ship, take pictures on the beach....look at dead seagulls...yum...and play soccer. It was really fun. 

This was one of those "I can do hard things" weeks we sometimes have on this mission. Brett, you're going to see pretty soon how it can be. There are some weeks where you just have days...and days... of searching, and nobody seems to want to accept your message. There are hours and hours of walking in unpaved dusty streets, in the freezing cold, trying to contact people that don't give you the time of day. There are days when you talk and talk and you think you're making sense...but almost everyone looks at you blankly and turns to your companion to ask "what did she just say?". Sometimes it seems like you're wasting your time and you would serve better in some other calling. But that really isn't true. 

I've been reading a lot in Our Search for Happiness, The Book of Mormon, DyC and the Pearl of Great Price this week. I love the scriptures. I love the words of modern prophets and apostles. Something that I've learned this week is that the Lord KNOWS us, He SEES how hard we are working, even if the blessings haven't come yet. Sometimes we have to be obedient just to show the Lord that we trust Him. We aren't obedient because we expect the Lord to bless us in the same moment, we're obedient because the Lord loves us and we want to show Him that we love Him too. I just finished the Book of Mormon again and I'm starting over. I was reading in 1 Nefi 2 about how Lehi left EVERYTHING, just because the Lord told him to. He didn't give a second thought about the possessions he had, he knew that the Lord had commanded him to leave Jerusalem, and he trusted that the Lord would eventually fulfill his promise about a chosen land that would bless his family. It's the same for us...sometimes we SACRIFICE and WORK and GO without question, hoping that the Lord will bless us, but we do it because He has already so richly blessed our lives. We do it because obedience is how we show Him our love. I was also reading in Moses 1 about how right after Moses saw the Lord, Satan came and tempted him right before he became a profeta. Similar to how Satan tempted and attacked Joseph Smith right before he had the First Vision. Satan is always trying to bring us down, make us think that we are something less than a child of God. He doesn't want us to fulfill our divine potential, he doesn't want us to fulfill the mission that the Lord has for us. God does. God sees our potential and knows we can do hard things, He has a plan for us and will fulfill all of His promises if we but ACTIVELY ENDURE.

On the bright side, C is progressing a ton. She's receiving a calling this week and volunteered to be a Visiting Teacher for someone that didn't have one. She's awesome. She's also started coming with us to teach our lessons because she's finished her classes at the university. She's a bright spot in our lives. 

To close I want to share a video with you guys that I'm sure you've already seen, but I haven't until this past week, and I've only seen it in Spanish. It's so profound and I feel the spirit every time we share it with our recent converts. 

https://www.lds.org/youth/video/because-of-him?lang=spa

https://www.lds.org/youth/video/because-of-him?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/youth/video/because-of-him?lang=deu  German for Brett haha

I know that Christ is our Savior. Our Heavenly Father loved us enough to send His Son. Because of Him we have the chance to become better each day. Because of Him we can reach our divine potential. Because of Him we can REPENT, we can BE BAPTIZED, we can be MADE CLEAN, and we can RETURN TO THE PRESENCE OF OUR LOVING HEAVENLY FATHER. Through Him, my family is eternal and everyone has that opportunity. I'm so grateful for my Savior. I know that He lives. I know that He loves us. I know that this is HIS work. 

I love you all and hope you have a beautiful week! 

Les amo

Hermana Carr 

C's  Baptism

Funky Boat at the beach

Ancon

Happy Birthday cake sparkler- to celebrate 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day!

June 29, 2014

Sounds like you guys had an awesome week! It seems like the Utah trip was a complete success and that you had a blast! TJ, I'm glad that your foot is feeling better! Cool story about the sister that converted to the church! Thanks for sharing! Kacey, I'm glad that you survived girls camp haha. Jake, I'm glad you had so much fun with your cousins. Daddy, glad that Cassie is working out at work! Is Kacey working there now too? 

Sorry, I'm writing kind of fast. We got to internet late and everyone is leaving early because we have Pday Afuera (outside) and we're going to the beach....in winter haha It'll be fun. 

This was a crazy week. There were so many ups and downs that I don't even know what to say really haha, but I'll do the best I can to make sense. 

So Tuesday we had training with President Archibald. I learned a lot from him and he answered a lot of the questions that I had about some of the problems we're facing in our area. He and Sister Archibald had a training meeting with Elder Oaks, so it was really awesome to learn what he taught them. Let me just say one thing: TITHING IS IMPORTANT. One of the key things that we believe in is the Law of Sacrifice. President and his wife shared a story about when they were young, newly married with two kids, and dirt poor...and how they chose to pay tithing.... sound familiar? They had a lot of miracles happen during that Christmas time. It brought tears to my eyes as I thought of mom and dad and their story about when we were living in Kansas. I always share that story with our investigators and EVERY TIME, I feel the spirit. Thanks Mom and Dad for being such amazing examples to me. You are examples of people that are OBEDIENT because we need to be OBEDIENT, Satan can't tempt us when we have the determination to obey a certain commandment no matter what. 

Wednesday was halfway day. I've reached the top of the mountain and it's all downhill from here. It was actually really interesting, because that day was a cumulation of ALL of my mission experiences in one day. The good, the bad, the spiritual, the ugly haha. I'll write a little bit about it. In the morning we set out trying to find some lost addresses in the ward. We showed up at one of the houses and there were two ladies talking outside. We went to ask and then one of them asked us if we were Mormons. I saw the way she was looking at me...and noticed she had her Bible in her hands. Oh...here we go. I smiled at her and told her we were missionaries of La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias. She started asking some weird questions....like who's Moroni, and random stuff. I smiled at her and asked if she had talked to missionaries before, because she seemed to have a little bit of insight "Oh noooo, I've never talked to missionaries" and here comes the bible-bashing-don't-get-a-word-in psycho lady. She started railing on us...well more on me...attacking the gringa... about how the Book of Mormon is of the devil and  blah blah blah blah....I tried once to testify, she didn't give me the chance to open my mouth....so I just stood there... I should have been angry...she was saying a lot of things that went against what I believe...but as I stood there...the image of Jesus Christ standing before the Sanhedrian came to mind... I don't know why but it just made me think...be quiet, and be calm. I realized that even if I say something to her, she's just going to take it and twist it. So we politely let her ramble on...she mentioned that she was actually mentally unstable but now she's been healed.... and then I politely wished her blessings and we left. Poor Hermana Kim...she's never experienced things like that before, so she didn't even know what to do. I'm starting to be very grateful that I started out in Caraz, because I pretty much dealt with all experiences there.

 After that we had some other random experiences... we contacted a lady that's 23, married, has a baby, and is looking for a church to go to....WHAAAA?! That never happens. We'll see how things go with her. We went to visit Carmen and had an amazing experience with her. She's facing a lot of opposition, mostly from her now ex boyfriend about the church, but she's strong and she's got a testimony that's rock solid. Then at night we went to visit our other fecha, E. We were at L's house and the kids were running around being crazy. We were supposed to prepare E for her interview, but I could tell something was bothering her. We invited her to come with us to the chapel and we taught her there. She had searched the internet and found some anti-Mormon stuff, typical. She was in doubt about a lot of things. We prayed and then had a really strong lesson about how there is opposition in all things and that the Lord is the only one that really knows everything. We read Moroni 7 about good things being of Christ. We bore testimony to E. and the Spirit was super strong. We got down on our knees and she prayed. She told us that she knew it was true and that she would get baptized.... well....Thursday she had her interview, then Friday and Saturday we couldn't find her...we called her and she finally answered saying that she was too busy to come to her baptism this week. Awesome...Sunday we went to visit with her again...but I don't know...we'll have to see.

Thursday night Hermana Archibald accompanied us after our interviews. It was awesome, we got a lot of insights from her and C. shared her testimony in English with Hermana Archibald, it was awesome! 

Saturday was a beautiful day. C. got baptized. She looked so beautiful and a ton of her friends came to support her. The Spirit was so strong from the get go. She's such a special person. We had prepared a special musical number for her. The EFY version of I am a Child of God...we translated it in Spanish. As soon as we started singing, the spirit filled the room. Within the first few lines, C. started crying, she was sitting right in front of me...I choked up too, but we managed to sing the whole song. Before it ended C. ran up and hugged us and wouldn't let go. She whispered that she loved us, and thank you for everything...that we had changed her life. The three of us just stood there crying in front of everyone... I was so overwhelmed with love for her. It was an amazing experience. Everyone in that room felt the Spirit the entire time. I'm so proud of C.. She has truly changed her life and given up everything to be a member of the Church and to live the Gospel. She's converted, rooted in the Gospel and I feel so blessed to have been a part of her conversion process.

Well, I'm running out of time but I just want you guys to know that I love you all! Sorry to everyone that wrote me this week, I only had time to write my family and my mission president, but I'll get back to you next week! 

Have an awesome week <3 HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!!

Hermana Carr